


Black mud

by curlydots



Category: Fate/stay night, Fate/stay night & Related Fandoms
Genre: Gen, Grimdark grimmy darkness, Post-Apocalypse, Post-Unlimited Blade Works
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-28
Updated: 2013-06-28
Packaged: 2017-12-16 09:42:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,580
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/860689
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/curlydots/pseuds/curlydots
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Saber walks across the desolate remains of a world burned black by the Holy Grail's power. And she isn't alone.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Black mud

**Author's Note:**

> A post Unlimited Blade Works Bad-End fic.

I.

Gilgamesh's hands are deceptively gentle when they hold her; one across her shoulders and the other beneath her knees as he pulls her against his chest. She's bleeding all over him, she realizes. It's Saber first thought as she returns to consciousness and maybe it is the blood loss that makes her find it so curious that the mess she's making doesn't seem to bother him at all. Saber had thought he would be a man who'd dislike the feeling of blood on his own body. That was Gilgamesh, wasn't it? The man didn't dare face her hand-to-hand at the cost of sullying himself, or worse yet, expending any kind of effort.

But Gilgamesh does not mind the blood, or else he is so enraptured in his own actions that he simply doesn't care. Saber blinks slowly and the world starts to swim into focus. Above them the sky is bright despite the hour, a false sun illuminating it. Red seeps into her vision and she closes her eyes against it but she can't block out the smell. Like fire and death, a nightmare given substance and so much more. Something unholy permeates the air and Saber doesn't need to have her eyes open to feel its presence all around her. She tries to flex her fingers but they refuse to move. Her sword will not come to her, not now. And if it did, Gilgamesh is completely uninjured. For all the strength she'd poured into their battle she could not even scratch the King of Heroes, while she - well, she is passed the point of pain, mercifully enough. She won't be able to defeat him in her current state. She can vaguely feel spots of warmth spreading across her body. _I must still be bleeding,_ Saber thinks, but as something like lucidity returns to her she wonders if it's all her own blood. _Where is Shirou?_

"Oh? Are you awake now?"

Saber swallows but the burning air is too dry to make speech any easier and her threats die in her throat. _Yes, I am awake,_ she thinks at him, _I am awake you bastard, and I will not let you do this._ The best she can manage is a low growl. Gilgamesh laughs.

"Good! It would boring if you slept through your own rebirth."

The air is hot and dry against her skin and yet she shivers beneath it. She's too awake now to let herself lay still, impotent in her enemies arms. If she is outmatched then she will die fighting, there is no alternative. But even as she thinks it Gilgamesh's grip tightens around her and she cries out, squeezing her eyes tight as pain racks her body. She could heal from this if Shirou were with her but sorrow pools in her gut when she remembers why he isn't. _You failed him. You couldn't keep your Master safe._

Beneath her the ground shakes. A blinding light fills her vision with red that crawls past her eyelids, driving away the mercy of the darkness.

"Open your eyes, Saber! There's hardly any point to any of this if you don't watch!"

Saber tries again but Excalibur doesn't come to her. With a ragged breath she opens her eyes.

At first all she can she is Gilgamesh, the way his crimson eyes shine as they look down at her in triumph. But then he turns away and focuses his gaze on the sky above them.

The night sky is a freakish red, lines of black staining it as if the sky itself were breaking. The unfamiliar black sun sits high above them surrounded by a ring of fire. With each passing second the air grows hotter and the black suns light grows brighter. For all its hideousness and the terror it brings her, Saber finds she can't look away.

Gilgamesh smiles down at her. "You remember this view, don't you? We fought beneath it ten years ago. It's just as beautiful now as it was back then."

Saber coughs and the taste of blood rises to her mouth before she tries again to speak. "Archer," she says hoarsely, "you cannot do this - "

Gilgamesh throws up his arms, holding Saber above his head like a sacrificial offering to the cursed sun.

"Archer!"

"Try not to resist it too much," says Gilgamesh, "The harder you try to hold onto yourself, the more painful it becomes!"

"Whatever feelings you may claim to harbor for me need not involved the lives of more innocent people," Saber says quickly. "It's me you want after all, right? If you go on you'll set that thing loose and there may be nothing left of the world you claim to own! Stop this madness now and the two of us can settle this - "

Gilgamesh chuckles. "And try not to go mad. I won't want you that way."

Above them a black rain begin to fall. Droplets of thick sludge leaking from the cracks in the sky. Every place where the cursed rain falls, the earth hisses and steams violently. The smooth stone steps of the Ryuudou Temple begin to smolder and burn.

"You should be honored, Saber! I've chosen you as the one worthy of sharing in this second life with me!"

There was a curse ready on her lips but when Saber looks up the sky is breaking open and black mud is flooding her world.

II.

_Die_

_Die_

_Die Die Die Die Die_

_The starting penalty is five. The hill is a graveyard. "Our king does not care for us." The enemy is born of your own blood. The bank of the river is crooked. **"Return the sword to the Lady of the Lake."** The starting penalty is five. There is no king without greed. Pillage, plunder, murder, burn, slaughter, betray, punish._

_Die_

_There is no return for the game is rigged. The hill is covered in blood, in dirt, in flesh, in lies, in traitors, in blood, in filth, in you, in skulls, in bones, in words, in silence, in nothing, in betrayal, in the kings flesh, and the kings men, and the kings enemy, and the starting penalty is five. There are liars at the Table **"Return the sword to the Lady of the Lake."** There is a lance in your heart, King of Knights._

_Die_

_It will not come. There is no truth, no kindness, their words are lies. Malevolence bleeds from their veins. Malevolence covers the hills. They are a cancer. They are filth that must be removed. Burn. Soft words turn to snakes on forked tongues. Hope exists only to be crushed. You cannot atone. You cannot go back. There is nothing left. The sword has been removed. There is nothing but this and the void and death. " **Return the sword to the Lady of the Lake**."_

_Die_

III.

Saber is in a place full of fire and darkness and screams but it is no longer the Grail. She opens her eyes and lets the world in - and then slowly closes them again.

She has a body. Not the body she has worn for so long, the construct of magic around a soul, but a true one made of flesh and bone. She flexes her fingers and they respond normally to her will, shifting dirt and debris from beneath her hands with ease. The ground is freakishly hot beneath her bare skin and crumbles apart when she touches it.

She has a body. That is definitely real and she can focus on that for now.

With some effort she slows her breathing and then sits up, letting her eyes open once more.

She cannot know if the place she's in is still the temple. It doesn't even look like Earth. Hellish fire licks the scenery around her, tearing down the remains of buildings and trees in its wake. The once uneven span of Fuyuki city, built high with skyscrapers is now a flatland engulfed in a moving sea of red. And it doesn't end. Every direction she looks, Saber is faced with the same sight. The same scorched earth, the same charred bodies, the same sky filled with black smoke.

And Gilgamesh sits besides her, eyes glowing a deeper red as they reflect the light of the unholy fire that surrounds them. He doesn't speak but there is triumph is his eyes as he watches her laying naked in the scorched earth. The raw sense of victory that he does not try to hide is more than enough to lite a rage in Saber's heart that she has never known before. This time when she calls her blade to her it answers at once, burning bright with the heat of her anger.

IV.

"Is it all out of your system?"

Saber gasps and yanks a bloodied axe from her shoulder. She throws it down among the countless treasures that lay in the rubble besides her and pushes herself back up onto her feet. It seems that her new body bleeds just as easily as her old one.

"Not yet?" Gilgamesh says. He sounds bored, if amused. "Very well, but the result will be the same either way." With a lazy gesture his Noble Phantasm appears behind him, filling the air with golden light. The rain of swords they unleash is heavier than it was before.

Saber's left arm doesn't move so she swings Excalibur with only her right. For every blade that she knocks from her path a dozen more replace it. She's getting nowhere, only just keeping the King of Heroes at bay with all the strength she can muster. And each swing only succeeds in making it feel as though the tendons in her new shoulder are trying to tear themselves apart. _Is this as far as my strength goes?_ she thinks, gritting her teeth in pain.

Two short daggers slip past her sword, catching her in the elbow and wrist of her good arm. Saber bites her lip but otherwise refuses to acknowledge the pain, only tightening the grip on her blade against every instinct of her body screaming for her to the opposite.

"This is beginning to bore me, Saber," Gilgamesh says. "What do you say we end this?" He opens a Gate above himself and lets a strange drill - like weapon fall into his hands. Saber recognizes it as the one he once claimed was the most powerful of his swords.

Gilgamesh raises Ea above his head and the world splitting weapon of the gods gleams in the distant firelight as it comes to life.

Saber raises Excalibur as best she can with her one arm. It shakes in her grip, but she focuses as much magical energy into it as she can anyway. She thinks of her men, her fellow knights and the strength they gave her. She thinks or Lancelot and Belvidere and even Shirou and the blade glows bright and golden in her hands. Her voice is thick with strain when she speaks its name but it resonates with the strength of her fallen comrades.

"Ex - "

"Enuma Elish!"

V.

_Die_

_Die_

_Die_

_All is not a Distant Utopia._

VI.

When Saber opens her eyes its raining dark and grey on her face. She can hear the faint whistle of the wind as it carries the scent of fire and death to her. There is a thick, red blanket draped possessively over her and Saber shoves it off. She gets up and spits out a mouthful of the ash filled rain but the taste still lingers on her tongue.

Gilgamesh isn't far off. He's sitting under the remnants of a buildings canopy, dry, perfectly clean and back in his casual clothing. For a moment she thinks about calling her sword again but her rage has washed away for now. There is a fury now, cold and unfamiliar in its place, and Saber think she would do better to let it fester.

VII.

She doesn't try to kill Gilgamesh again for a while after that, though she daydreams of it often enough.

VIII.

"If you are tired, King of Heroes, feel free to stop following me."

"Don't be absurd. This little trek of yours is nothing." Gilgamesh says, not bothering to pick up his pace. He is not far behind Saber and keeps his pace slow and leisurely, as he keeps everything. Saber pointedly walks ahead of him, eyes on where her feet will fall but she doesn't ignore her surroundings. She lets each detail ingrain itself into her memory so that she can remind Gilgamesh of them when the time comes.

She has lost track of how long she has been walking now. All sense of time is horribly skewed when day and night both bare the same dark sky above them. They've encountered no one else in all this time and so she has little to mark the differences between days. Saber doesn't even have a sleep cycle to give her an estimate. The view around her never truly changes no matter where they walk. It's all the same: fire and desolation. All she knows is that she's heading North - West, and that she will continue to do so until either her feet refuse to carry her, or she reaches her destination. She doubts Gilgamesh has her patience or endurance.

"I do not intent to slow down."

Saber isn't looking at him, but she can hear the smirk in his voice, "We have an entirety of time to live in pleasure and decadence. If you feel the need to spend a few years punishing yourself for whatever crimes you think you've committed against the world - "

"You would do well to hold your tongue, Archer - "

"You do not own the insects who crawled over my planet anything." He says.

Saber picks up her pace for a while, but it is not for long. There is an ache that has set itself deep into her new bones, and it won't allow her speed for long.

IX.

"But I suppose you wouldn't be as beautiful if you weren't burdened with the weight of the world, would you?" Gilgamesh says hours later.

Saber walks on.

X.

During their first few weeks (or is it months?) in the wasteland of the Grail's design, Saber prays everyday that there are other survivors. It is the only thought in her mind that does not frighten her, that is not an echo of the Grail or a wish for Gilgamesh's death. But each passing day she fears more and more than they will find no one in the ashes. That it is just the two them alone in the world.

Though building have toppled over, burned down and been crushed away, the lines of magic that ran beneath them still remain. They help Saber feel the familiar presence of Tohsaka Rin's magic in the rubble beneath her feet. It is Rin's home that coats the hem of Saber's dress in black ash. Or rather what remains of it. Saber thinks she would have cried at the moment if she'd drunken any fluids in the days past. And if Gilgamesh hadn't been standing at her side.

XI.

Gilgamesh often speaks aloud to her while they walk, as though he greatly enjoys the sound of his own voice. Most often she ignores his musing but sometimes, when the road grows too quiet for her, his words echo in her mind

"If there are men left," he says to her one day, "can you imagine the savagery of those dogs left without their leashes in a world with no scrapes? It might be amusing to watch them feed on one another like the beasts they are."

Saber had had nothing to say at the time. _They'll be good men out there,_ she'd thought, _hard times bring out the worst in all of us but there will be kindness and mercy, still. The Grail can't completely warp men's hearts._

XII.

At least a dozen men surround them, armed to the teeth with crude weapons and cruel smiles. They reek of blood, the lot of them, and Saber does not doubt their intentions as she watches one of the men raise a cheap rusted blade to his mouth and run his tongue across it. Besides her Gilgamesh makes a sound of disgust.

"You will lower your weapons," Saber says calmly. "I do not wish to harm you."

Saber hears laughter behind her and turns to sees others emerging from behind piles of rubble to block her path away. There are at least two dozen now, maybe more, armed to the teeth with smiles unsuited for human faces. Rather than anger, Saber feels nausea wash over her like a wave. These people look more like demons than men to her. Covered in filth and scrambling over each other to get a better view of her.

"Well, well, Saber. It's been awhile since we've gotten any real exercise." Gilgamesh draws a blade, a single mid - length one that he spins in his palm. "What do you say: are you in the mood to put down some dogs?"

Saber knew well that in the midst of war there are times when atrocities are committed. In the height of battle, morals may be forgotten and kindness can become a thing of the past. Saber never showed mercy to men who'd she'd discovered has committed such crimes. Her justice was swift and she left righteousness in her path. But this was all too different. There was nothing of regret or remorse in their eyes. The feeling of rightness that came with striking down a wrong doer did not come when she cut down the first man to approach her.

 _This is first time I've seen someone other than Archer in a while_ , Saber thought. The nameless man crumpled at her feet.

XIII.

The blood almost burns off her blade in its light, leaving it as clean as ever. Saber eyes the bodies that surround her and breathes heavily, heavier than she ever has in a fight against humans as a Servant. _Is this what having a real body means? Growing so weak when I push myself just a little?_

"That was anticlimactic." Says Gilgamesh. He steps over a nearby body with a look of mild disgust. "I'd been hoping for something more rewarding, if only from the sheer number of them." He waves a hand and the dozens of blades that litter the ground before them vanish. For every man that Saber had cut down to keep away from her, Gilgamesh had cut down two who had tried to flee. It worries her somewhere deep down that she had not tried to stop him from killing men who were trying to run away. But then she remembers the stink of the breath of the man whose knife had come close to cutting her throat, and the filthy words he'd tried to whisper in her ear. He shouldn't have been able to get so close to her but the weariness in her body has left her slower. She curses under her breath and the shadow of guilt vanishes.

"I'm sorry you were deprived of you entertainment." Saber says bitterly. Gilgamesh laughs lightly. "What?"

"Oh, nothing. You haven't spoken to me in some time and I'd forgotten how lovely your voice was."

Saber frowns and turns away from him. Her chest is still heaving from the fight but she can't stand among the field of corpses anymore. She holds her side as she walks, picking up the same pace she'd had earlier. If she tries to slow down she's sure she'll faint.

Gilgamesh's footsteps are steady behind her.

XIV.

The exhaustion is so strong that Saber finds it hard to believe there was ever a time that she wasn't tired.

Her armor, which has always been like a second skin to her, now feels like a series of weights tied to her body, hot and heavy. Eventually she gives in to the discomfort and removes it, walking through the ragged landscape in just her dress. She's sure that Gilgamesh is pleased by this but finds she doesn't care if his view is improved. Soon the brilliant blue her dress once wore becomes stained and the color dulls.

She only ever briefly closes her eyes as she walks but even then the visions come. Half - formed memories twisted with an uncomfortable madness. Black thoughts, dreams of evil sketching themselves on her brain. Saber thinks she'll go crazy if she lets herself see the Grail's corruption again but it may not be much better if she doesn't sleep soon.

Gilgamesh is never more than twenty feet behind her as he matches her stride. Saber is content to spend all of her breath on keeping herself moving, rather than talking to the vile man behind her. But as much as she wishes she could completely ignore him, Gilgamesh's voice is not one that fades easily into the background. Today's subject relates to the amount of alcohol the Gate of Babylon contain, and Saber feels a slight headache form at the enthusiasm with which the man brags about his collection.

"Why aren't you healing?" Gilgamesh says suddenly.

Saber grits her teeth and keeps walking.

"Hey - " Gilgamesh grabs her arm and Saber flinches. "I asked you a question."

"Yes, I heard you. Despite my wish to the contrary, I am not deaf." She yanks her arm out of Gilgamesh's grasp.

"You're low on mana." He says.

"What of it?" She turns to walk away but suddenly finds the ground rushing up to meet her. She hits it hard and has hardly begun to push herself back up before Gilgamesh is down straddling her, a hand on her shoulder pinning her down.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?" Saber says, shoving his hand away. Gilgamesh moves to tugs at the lacing of her dress.

"You're not sleeping." He says. "So if you're going to be stubborn then there are easier and more _enjoyable_ ways to restore your mana - "

Saber summons her armor long enough to crack the back of an armored fist across his jaw and shove him off. Gilgamesh spits blood but doesn't try to stop her from getting to her feet again.

But he does smile when she sits herself down against a fallen tree as far from him as possible. With narrowed eyes, she draws her knees up against her body to keep herself warm for the night.

XV.

She waits until she's certain that Gilgamesh is asleep before she truly lets herself relax. As much as she can anyway. The ground is dry and dusty and she doesn't have the buffer of Gilgamesh's half - dozen thick velvet blankets to keep herself comfortable. But as soon as she closes her eyes she slips off into sleep almost instantly.

But not for too long. Fire dances across her dreams.

XVI.

She feels less tired when she wakes up, though the ache is no better. If anything the added sleep has further awakened pains she'd tried so hard to suppress. More than anything, the feeling of waking up in an unfamiliar place makes her wish she was back in Shirou's home, waking up to find that he'd made her breakfast.

She forces herself back up to her feet. It might be morning, Saber has no idea, but Gilgamesh is awake already. She watches as he eats a leg of some strange meat. Whatever it is it smells delicious.

She flinches when he reaches into his Gate of Babylon but he only pulls out another piece of meat and offers it to her. Saber eyes it suspiciously but her stomach makes the decision for her. She snatches it from his hand and sits as far away from him as possible why she eats.

"They don't go away." Gilgamesh says. When Saber only stares at him and chews silently he continues, "The dreams. They never really go away. But after awhile they just become annoying white noise. Easily ignored."

Saber goes back to eating.

XVII.

It takes her a moment to recognize the lifeless mass of still grey in front of her as water. It's color is lighter than the dark clouds above her but when she tosses a rock into it sinks slowly into the thick liquid. The stench alone makes Saber miss the smell of buildings burned to a char. It's the putrid stink of death and rot and she doesn't need to be able to see into it to know there is nothing alive in it's murky depths.

It's conditions may be horrific, but it is still water and no body of water can stop her. But as it turns out it doesn't stop Gilgamesh either. When Saber begins walking across it Gilgamesh doesn't even slow as he calls himself a golden bridge made entirely from his Gates. He walks across it with his usual nonchalance.

"You didn't think a little water could stop me, did you?" He says. He's tied a scarf across his face, presumably to fend off the smell but otherwise doesn't seem remotely bothered.

 _No,_ Saber thinks, _but it would have been nice to see you at least break a sweat._

When they reach land again Saber decides to make camp for the day. Gilgamesh falls asleep so quickly he hardly has time to lay down and Saber stares at him in shock. He'd been hiding it so well that it hadn't occurred to her that he might be just as exhausted as she is. Though Saber's clothing looks as terrible as she feels, Gilgamesh has made an effort to always look as though nothing has changed for him at all. But now, wrapped up as he is in his blankets and in deep sleep, he looks more human than she's even seen him. More defenseless.

Saber has never before considered killing a man in his sleep, but for a time, as she watches the slowing of the man's breath, she does.

XVIII.

There is only one night where the Grail does not haunt her dreams. Instead Lancelot comes to her that night, his hands wrapped around her throat while he whispers of how she has failed him, failed all of them. She let them die, let England fall to ruin, let the world burn how could she do nothing while the world burned?

She tries to tell him that she did everything she could but his fingers only tighten around her throat and world goes red.

When she finally wakes she moves as far from where Gilgamesh sleeps as she can before falling to her knees and burying her face in her hands.

"I'm - I'm so sorry!" She cries, to men long dead.

XIX.

Some nights afterwards, Saber wakes up warm for the first time in what feels like a thousand lifetimes not from dreams burned black in the searing fires of the black mud, but from ones that are warm and inexplicably safe. She doesn't want to move in case she breaks the spell and wakes to find herself flung back into the world of ash that awaits her.

She is dimly aware of a soft sensation on her head. It's unfamiliar to her so it takes awhile to identify but when she does it's unmistakable. Her hair is being stroked.

Saber's mind only briefly entertains the notion of waking up completely before the gentleness of the sensation has lulled her back to sleep.

XX.

But she'd learned a lifetime ago that affront against her could not be allowed to go unpunished.

XXI.

"Draw your sword, King of Heroes."

Gilgamesh's red eyes blink open. He looks unsurprised to see that the tip of Saber's blade is at his throat. "Oh?"

"Get up or I'll kill you where you lay."

Gilgamesh shrugs off his blankets and gets to his feet. Saber narrows her eyes. She isn't imagining it this time, Gilgamesh movements are sluggish rather than languid. He is tired still, maybe just as tired as she is but he hides it better beneath his usual smug smile. Now that she is looking at him, really looking at him, she can see it clearly. The icy core of her rage leaves her sword hand more steady than the rest has and for now she doesn't feel weak. Saber takes a step back for just a second and raises her sword. She gives him no time, doesn't allow him the chance to distance himself from her at all, just leaps forward and swings to cut off his head.

Gilgamesh is fast enough to have a sword in his hand to block her, but only just. She doesn't give him time to open up his Gates of Babylon. Not now, not when there is blood in the water. She swings relentlessly, aiming to kill with each strike and it is all Gilgamesh can do try and keep his distance. It makes her heart pound and her blood sing to know that for the first time, the man is at her mercy.

There is anger in Gilgamesh's eyes and it is more satisfying than Saber could have possibly imagined. Gilgamesh stumbles, dodging the swing of her sword and Saber drives her elbow into his pretty face.

"Guh - " Gilgamesh stumbles clutching his nose. Saber screams wordlessly and rams her shoulder into her chest. They both go down in a cloud of dust and Saber is on top of him, straddling him as he had her.

"Do you care at all for the people you killed?!" She shouts, surprising herself with her words. She drops her sword and pulls him by his collar. "Do you care at all that you've turned the world to ash?!"

Gilgamesh turns and spits on the ashy earth. "Did you care for the men we killed not so long ago? You saw the way they were. They were filthy mutts not fit to walk on my planet, just like all of them are. It was no different, you just couldn't see it until then."

"There were good men! Good men that you killed with your selfish, delusional ideals!" Saber pulls the blonde closer and shouts the words into his face.

"Ha!" Gilgamesh laughs breathlessly. "There's no such thing as a 'good man'! You worship the dead as though they were flawless to add to the guilt you think you need to feel!"

"And you lower all men to dogs so that you don't need to care when you trample them under your boots!" Saber pulls Gilgamesh into the next punch and the blonde hits the ground hard, blood pouring from his nose. "What gives you - the right - to measure the weight - of men's lives!" She shouts, punctuating each word with another blow.

"This world is mine, that's what gives me the right!" Gilgamesh roars. He rolls over and shoves Saber down beneath him. "Every mans life was mine to end and every inch of earth was mine to burn! I can build and destroy as it suits me because all things of this earth belong to me and you are no exception!"

Saber drives her knee into Gilgamesh's ribs and he doubles over. "You are the king of nothing, Gilgamesh, and I belong to no one! Especially not a madman!" She pulls herself away and bends down to pick up her sword. Gilgamesh is still bent over, clutching his stomach. She raises her sword high, ready to bring it down on his exposed neck when she hears him laughing.

"You belong to no one?!" He says, a touch of hysteria in his voice. "You know that's a lie. You belong to an entire country of dead men and bunch of mongrel teenagers whom you tried to serve. You may not yet belong to me but your life has been owned by the souls of the dead for as long as you've been a heroic spirit! That is the burden you've carried with you as a king and that is something that will forever make you a beautiful little fool. But if you want to add another vision to your nightmares than go ahead!

Saber roars as she swings her sword down but it strikes the ground instead of Gilgamesh's throat like she'd intended. Gilgamesh looks up at her and then gets up slowly, breathing heavily. Saber watches him move but cannot make herself swing again. Her sword arm doesn't stop shaking.

"And you... you carry no guilt within you?" She says hoarsely.

For once, Gilgamesh doesn't meet her eyes. "I used up all my tears for the dead a long ago."

XXII

There are no more words spoken that night, there is no fight left in either of them. They camp where they fought, amidst indiscernible rubble, farther away from each other than usual. The exhaustion has returned to Saber's bones worse than ever but sleep evades her. At the least she takes solace in the fact that Gilgamesh for once looks almost as bad as she does with his face bruised and swollen and his clothing covered in dust.

When a pitcher of wine and a goblet fall out of a Gate just besides where she lays she accepts them both wordlessly.

XXIII.

Saber doesn't know how long she sleeps but when she wakes up she's a little less tired than she's been in a while.

XXIV.

Sometime later, it might have weeks, it might have months, the clouds turn grey.

Not the blackish grey of a smoke filled sky but one of an approaching rain. Saber stops to watch the sky and smells the metallic tang of ozone in the air. A low rumble shakes her just before the first drops begin to fall. It's the first rain she's seen since the day the black mud spat her out in her new flesh. Gilgamesh stands just besides her, staring up at the clouds too. His expression looks like one of annoyance but Saber is starting to think it's simply the only expression he's capable of that isn't smug or full of rage.

"Sounds like thunder." She says.

Gilgamesh tsks. "The rain will probably be filthier than we are."

"It might clear up afterwards." Saber suggests but the only response she gets is a childish shrug. Despite his complaining he doesn't move and stands with her as the rain begins to pour. There is an almost constant sound of rolling thunder across the sky but the lightening never shows itself from behind the clouds. Gilgamesh is right, and the droplets are brown and sting her skin but the more it rains the clearer the pour becomes. Then she's closes her eyes and lets it wash some of the filth from her clothing.

XXV.

It doesn't take them long to reach the hill after that. One more pale sea, a few cities charred black, and they are there.

Before them it is dull grey and covered with the soggy remains of ash yet to swept away by rain and wind. A pale light bathes it in a familiar color that Saber has never been able to forget. It's been hundreds of years, and yet no time at all since she last stood on this hill with the blood of her enemies and comrades beneath her feet and the lonely wind of a deserted battlefield on her back.

Gilgamesh, despite his ordinary chattiness, has fallen silent at the look on her face. Saber is glad at least for that mercy he shows her. With a sigh, Saber walks on, letting her feet carry her up the familiar path to the place that been her death and her purgatory for so very long.

XXVI.

"I know what you are trying to do, Gilgamesh." Saber finally says.

Gilgamesh looks up. They'd been sitting under the clouded suns light for hours in total silence; Saber watching the hill, and Gilgamesh watching her most of the time.

"It will not work on me." She says.

Gilgamesh smiles at her. Not his normal smile full of malicious intent or a knowing smugness, more the smile of a man who has heard something pleasant. He doesn't say anything.

"You've killed the only people in this time that I cared for so do not think for a moment that you shall ever be forgiven for that. Do not think that, in time, I will ever stop hating you. And do not ever think that because you are the only man around I will fall into your arms like a love struck maiden."

"You think very highly of your value in my eyes," Gilgamesh say, his red eyes narrowed. "Which, I suppose, you should, I would not have picked you if I did not see your worth. But truth be told, I would have done this even if I'd never meet you."

This time Saber laughs. The feeling is dry and uncomfortable in her throat. "Is that supposed to make me feel better?"

"If you find the truth comforting."

"Then why?' Saber wraps her arms around her knees. "Because the world is ugly and full of boring things?"

"For the most part." Gilgamesh reaches forward to brush a lock of hair from Saber's face but she slaps his hand away. He smirks. "There are some parts of it that are beautiful. And if this world is truly my garden then shouldn't I cut out of the weeds and let the flowers bloom?"

"I've been around you too long, Gilgamesh, your insanity is starting to make sense." Saber says. And then on an afterthought, "But I'll slit your throat before I let myself start believing it."

Gilgamesh huffs but adds nothing else.

Saber doesn't look at him, she just stretches out and lays back on the wet grass.

"How much alcohol did you say your Gates of Babylon contain?"

Gilgamesh leans forward to pass her an already filled cup with a grin. Saber sits up on an elbow and drains the cup. Gilgamesh refills it.

This time she raises the cup. "What shall we toast to then, King of Heroes?" She says. "Fallen kingdoms? Dead Masters?" _Your death? My possible insanity?_ She thinks.

"I never drink to the past, Saber, only for myself."

"I'm not surprised. But this place is the past. I can't drink here and not remember it."

Gilgamesh looks up and down the hill as if seeing it for the first time. "You brought me to England - "

"I did not _bring_ you anywhere - "

"To your purgatory." Gilgamesh sighs and summons another, much larger flagon. "Then I suggest you drink away your ghosts here and now and be done with them."

 _It's not that simple,_ Saber thinks, but she picks up her golden cup anyway. The previous rain has left only pale, dead grass in its wake across the hill. Saber watches the wind blow through the grass as she sits drinking with Gilgamesh and thinks the names of every friend she had ever known and every countrymen she had ever failed with each sip she takes. Gilgamesh easily matches her drink for drink in silence. When she finally reaches Shirou's name her flagon is empty so she yanks Gilgamesh's cup out of his hand and drains it. He only shrugs and summon another two more to replace it.

It rains again, cold and heavy on the hillside and Saber is willing to delude herself into thinking that it is a sign that maybe, just maybe, her sins are being washed away.

Just a little.


End file.
